Return To Central park

New York City - November 2015

One of my best birding memories ever has got to be exploring the wonderment of Central Park. Put simply, it is a truly special place with a lot more than just tourists, joggers and pretzel stands to enjoy (as delicious as they may be). Central Park is a birding mecca, attracting over 230 different species of bird annually. The site has had books written on it, documentaries produced and attracted literally thousands of birders from around the globe. The 843-acre metropolitan mega-park is a must see for any visiting tourist, birder or nature enthusiast and through my own experiences, I'm going to try to show you why.

I first visited Central Park in the winter of 2013. I did most of my birding with local birder Deb Allen which you can read about here. Now I was back and ready to experience it all again, this time sharing the experience with my girlfriend Clancye Milne. Over the first week of our trip (Nov 15-23) we visited the park on five occasions and saw a total of 53 different species including some very special individuals.

On Day 1 in the park, we set out from the SE corner and covered most of the entire site over the next few hours. On my previous visit I had seen 60 species across Manhattan and was keen to improve on it - there were still many easy lifers around to add to my list. According to eBird, there were around 20~ species seen in the previous week that would be new for me. Soon enough we were engulfed in the wonder of these North American specialties with American Robin on every lawn, flocks of Common Grackle in every tree and White-throated Sparrow flitting in every garden bed. I was in awe, dazzled and refreshed with this new palette of avian delights. It was like reading a much loved book from your childhood, returning to something so warm and familiar yet offset and distant. We wandered down the many winding paths, crossed the historic bluestone bridges and danced through fields painted with autumn leaves of gold, red and mahogany. It was the perfect sanctuary.

Our first highlight came in the form of a relatively plain bird, the American Crow. A sound all too familiar, its call having featured in numerous American films, the murder appropriately announced our entry into the enchanting woodland known as the Ramble. Here we celebrated the spirited forest species such as Tufted Titmouse, Brown Creeper and the simply gorgeous Northern Cardinal. Whilst wandering down through an area known to locals as the Oven, we spotted a medium-sized woodpecker perched a top a large dead tree trunk. Mainly black with bold white patches on its wings, it surveyed us from its tower before zipping off into the Ramble never to be seen again. What on earth had that been? It certainly wasn't a species I was familiar with - time will tell!

Next stop was the feeders, an area where all the little passerines congregate during winter to nab that little extra snack during the harder months of the year. We had Black-capped Chickadee, White-breasted Nuthatch, Mourning Dove, Downy Woodpecker and most exciting of all - Purple Finch another lifer! On our way out of the Ramble, we turned to suddenly see a tiny little bird of prey swoop down on a poor unsuspecting titmouse - it was an American Kestrel yet another tick! But before we had time to celebrate I noticed a large black bird of prey soaring overhead. It was like nothing I had ever seen and was truly stumped. I raised my binoculars and gasped in amazement - it was a Turkey Vulture, my first ever vulture species (you don't get them Down Under!) Thinking that our bird of prey streak couldn't get any better, before we knew it a Cooper's Hawk sailed by the Reservoir as we sat counting ducks - lifer number 5! On the water, we had Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Canada Goose, Mallard, Northern Shoveler, Bufflehead, Ruddy Duck and our particular favourite - Hooded Merganser. What an excellent first day!

American Robin

Common Grackle

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

The park is managed by a private non-profit organisation known as the Central Park Conservatory which was formed in 1980 by a group of citizens determined to improve the quality of the site. Today the organisations mission is to continue restoring, managing and enhancing Central Park by promoting wildlife, attractions and aspiring to lead through world-class park management. Over 75% of the parks annual budget comes in the form of donation - so please support the park by clicking here.

Soon enough we were back in the park, this time to search for the very secretive Great Horned Owl. Anyone who knows me or follows my regular BirdLog Diary will be aware of my obsession with nocturnal birds, particularly owls and nightjars - so I was desperate to see some North American owls whilst in town. This particular Great Horned Owl had taken up roost in a large elm tree within the Ramble for a whole week before we arrived in NY but had decided to leave on the afternoon of our arrival - typical! After an incredible day out birding with local legend Richard Fried at Jones Beach and Jamaica Bay, Clancye and I arrived back at Central Park to meet other local birding expert Anders Peltomaa who had called us with news that the owl was back! Soon we reached the feeders and after a few minutes searching, we spotted the Great Horned Owl sitting high up in a Northern Red Oak Tree! I was ecstatic and stared glued in amazement at the magnificence of this creature. Perched like royalty, this apex predator glared down at us from its throne, showing off its bright yellow eyes, tawny facial disc and iconically charismatic ear tufts. Sharing in the magic of this bird was unquestionably a serious highlight for the whole trip and will go down as one of my most memorable natural world experiences.

Over the next few days, it became part of our daily routine to make a stop in at the park even if only for a brief 20 minutes. We tracked new species such Golden-crowned Kinglet and Merlin as well as stumbling onto Red-eared Slider, Eastern Chipmunk, Racoon and of course the ever-present Grey Squirrel. Whilst going through the New York Birders Facebook page, I noticed people discussing a regular vagrant in the park that had been hanging around in the Oven. A medium-sized woodpecker, mainly black with bold white patches on its wings - that sounds familiar! I got up my photos from the first day and sure enough, Clancye and I had stumbled upon the juvenile Red-headed Woodpecker! Armchair tick!

Red-tailed Hawk

Great Horned Owl

Grey Squirrel

The next big highlight came in the form of an unidentified flycatcher that was first sighted on the Wednesday afternoon. This was a mega vagrant and a first for the entire state of New York and as always, I was more than happy to get tied up in a good twitch! The flycatcher went Thursday unreported before being relocated and photographed in the Ramble late on Friday afternoon. Saturday morning Clancye, Anders, Rich and our other new birding mate James Muchmore and I were at the Oven at crack of dawn trying to find this bird. The consensus was that this bird was a Western Flycatcher, but thanks recent taxonomic updates, it had been split into two species - Pacific-slope Flycatcher, Empidonax difficilis and Cordilleran Flycatcher, Empidonax occidentalis. This is where it gets very tricky. The two species are literally identical in size, shape, plumage etc. The calls are 90% identical and the only way they are truly separated is by range when found back at home towards the west coast.

Nonetheless we persevered and soon enough another birder located the western type flycatcher at the entrance to Ramble just north of the Boathouse. We were there in a heartbeat and within 5 minutes a entourage of 30 keen birders had assembled - that's twitching for ya! Western Flycatcher - tick, kind of? Well, it was a very, very drab bird. Small, greeny/brown with slight yellowish underparts. It was extremely scruffy and somewhat bedraggled, missing a lot of feathers around its head and across the body. Either way, the bird had a lot of attention with cameras and binoculars peering up from every angle all determined to catch a glimpse.

Thankfully the flycatcher behaved and after 20 minutes or so we left the ever-growing party of twitchers. In terms of an identification, the locals were determined to single out the species - and rightly so! After being concluded there was no way to tell them a part by sight alone, calls were recorded and then even its fecal matter collected. For some more details click here to read Doug Futuyma's explanation on the Cordellian/Pacific Coat split/lump on the ABA list server. Early signs from recordings and behaviour are beginning to suggest Pacific-slope Flycatcher, but at this stage, it appears only time will tell.

Audio recording, poop collection and hoard of keen twitchers!

So in the first week, Central Park had shown us 53 different species of bird, given me 10 new lifers and introduced me to some truly wonderful people! I was beginning to amass a few nemesis species including Red-breasted Nuthatch, Swamp Sparrow, Hairy Woodpecker, Brown-headed Cowbird and Pine Siskin - so here's to week 2!